The Longwood Graduate Program Blog

Tag Archives: speaker lineup

By now, you’ve hopefully heard about the 2012 Longwood Graduate Symposium, which is quickly approaching. Held on Friday, March 2nd at Longwood Gardens, “The Panda and the Public Garden: Reimagining our Conservation Story” is sure to shed new light on how public gardens (and zoos, aquarium, parks, and museums!) can inspire their audiences to advocate for conservation issues.

Our keynote speaker, Jerry Borin, served as the executive director of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium for sixteen years. During his tenure, Mr. Borin transformed nearly every aspect of the zoo, galvanized community support for global conservation issues, and cultivated a complete visitor experience. The keynote address will examine how zoos have developed into centers for wildlife conservation through international collaboration, effective messaging, and experiential display.

Dr. Alistair Griffiths will be arriving from the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, to analyze creating a public garden around an environmentalism message. Dr. Griffiths is the Horticultural Science Curator at the Eden Project, and will use the case study of commercializing a critically endangered impatiens to build awareness for conservation of Seychelles flora.

John Gwynne melds plant and animal conservation expertise. Speaking with twenty years of experience with integrated design for conservation messaging at the Bronx Zoo, Mr. Gwynne will examine marketing environmental issues to the typical visitor. He will also explore living museums in the US, and their connections to his international conservation endeavors.

Catherine Hubbard comes to us from the Albuquerque BioPark, which includes a zoo, aquarium, botanic garden, and park. She has over 30 years experience working in both zoos and gardens and will discuss conservation strategies currently employed by American zoo and aquarium facilities.

Kathleen F. Wagner has more than 30 year’s experience, including time at the Philadelphia Zoo and independent consulting with zoos, museums, botanical gardens, interpretive centers, and aquariums throughout the country. She will bring her experience together to show that successful conservation is about great storytelling and helping people connect the dots. Message relevance and effective evaluation techniques will be discussed.

If successful conservation is all about great storytelling, we need to learn how to tell better stories! To help us do that, we invited Sally O’Byrne and Andrew Losowsky. Sally O’Byrne, President of the Delmarva Ornithological Society and board member of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and the Delaware Nature Society, will share the significance of conservation messaging through the art of storytelling. Andrew Losowsky, award winning journalist, playwright, content curator, thinker, and Books Editor of the Huffington Post, will dramatically explain what makes a story compelling.